Changes in Higher Education Public Funding During Economic and Financial Crisis

European higher education systems are at stake, since global economic and financial crisis emerged in 2009. The aim of the paper was to test the research question: How did higher education funding change in response to the crisis (compared with pre-crisis period)? We observed changes in higher education funding during crisis through three indicators in comparative perspective to pre-crisis period. We found that we cannot provide any clear patterns, since there are different responses to the crisis resulting from different funding traditions. Nevertheless, we also found significant differences in expenditures on tertiary education as % of GDP between two groups of countries. Countries that invested high levels of funding on tertiary education before the crisis did also increase their investment during the crisis. On the other hand, we found no significant differences between groups of countries regarding two other indicators, namely the annual expenditures for public and private tertiary education institutions per student and financial aid to students.